1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slush molding machine and, more particularly, to a slush molding machine suitable for use in research and development.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Slush molding machines have been used in assembly plants to mass produce molded vehicle components. Typically such high volume, high capacity slush molding machines must process a series of molds, also known as tools, on a continuous basis. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,690,626 discloses a molding device capable of producing parts from multiple tools. This apparatus includes a heating chamber and several cooling chambers. The heating chamber is centrally located and the cooling chambers are arranged circularly about the heating chamber. The tools are mounted on supports that run between the heating chamber and the various cooling chambers. Thus, the tools can be shuttled between the heating chamber and the cooling chambers as needed.
While such high volume, high capacity slush molding machines are well suited to a production environment, it is impractical to use these devices to develop or evaluate different types of molding powders for several reasons. Firstly, the physical structure of high volume, high capacity slush molding machines is prohibitively large and cannot be stationed in a smaller environment, such as a laboratory. Scientists or engineers who want to develop or evaluate a molding powder must go to a slush molding machine located off site, which limits their ability to frequently evaluate molding powders. In addition, these off site slush molding machines might be involved in production, so any evaluation of molding powders would require halting production, thus increasing development lead time and production costs. Furthermore, high capacity, high volume slush molding machines require prohibitively large sample sizes of molding powder which makes testing or evaluating these molding powders at best inconvenient. Accordingly, it is desirable to have a slush molding machine that addresses one or more of the above-mentioned issues.